Postwar World: George Shellhase

Well, enough about me. It's been ages since St.-Joseph's-back Saturday flipped through the pages of A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World, so today we take a quick look at a spread of cartoons by George Shellhase. Embiggenate at will.

The work of George Mann Shellhase (1895-1988) appeared in publications such as Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Esquire, The New Yorker and The New York Times in the 1930s through 60s. He also sketched trials for the New York Herald Tribune.

And, okay, so I already posted that first page last summer. I couldn't think of any other theme for this second page of his cartoons.

"It`s best to be born with real talent," the chiefly self-taught Shellhase, who sold his first drawing at age 14, once advised aspiring artists. "Next, learn to love the art of drawing and draw, draw, draw. Love the great beauties of nature. ... Experiment with enthusiasm the infinite variety of nature`s designs and forms. Love humanity and interpret at your best the many events that unfold before your eyes each day."

The PostWar World: Back to the Future

With Back to the Future now set entirely in the past, Skateback Saturday returns once more to A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World, (Consolidated Book Publishers, 153 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago 1, Illinois. And no, I don't know whatever became of Chicago 2. But that's what it says on the front cover.)

Click on image to enlarge.

I'm posting some text-intensive stuff today, starting with the above riff on the postwar kitchen from none other than Gracie Allen (George Burns's better half, for those of you too young to remember, but old enough to know who George Burns was. For you millennials, she portrayed a ditsy female whose innocent misunderstanding of the world around her delighted radio and TV audiences in the 1940's and 50's. This piece doesn't really show off her style, which required having George there as the straight man).

Gracie's home planner was definitely overoptimistic about an antless future, but Gracie was not alone in her opinion of orange decor. The color I associate with a 1950's kitchen is white, which I assume looked better than orange on a black-and-white TV. Ugly colors came roaring back about the same time as color televisions came into general usage; avocado was inexplicably popular.

This next one, imagining the changes to be faced by the man of the house, takes up two pages. I had to look up who H. I. Phillips was; imdb.com reports that he was a Broadway composer and sketch writer who contributed to such memorable revues as "Life Begins at 8:40" (1935) and "Ziegfeld Follies of 1934" (1934).

Whether Phillips was writing for radio by 1944, or Colliers, I have no idea. There's nothing in his imdb.com credits after the mid-1930's.

At any rate, even though he failed to foresee gas supplanting coal and oil as the heating source for the majority of American homes -- and perhaps the toaster-sized furnace is yet to come -- it's kind of fun to see how some anonymous artist pictured the domicile of the 1950's.

Marty McFly would have felt right at home.

Postwar World: War's End

This week marked the 70th anniversary of V-J Day, so for Saluteback Saturday, another look through the cartoons of A Bird's Eye View of the Postwar World. Another cartoon by William Wenzel illustrates the anticipation of the war's end:

"Your third from the left postwar plan is home, baby!"

The anticipation of a return to a normal home life was not limited to seeing one's loved ones again. At least of the flesh and bones variety -- America's love affair with the car was about to shift into high gear.

A generation that had grown up with Depression Era and War Time austerity was eager for an end to shortages and rationing. Aside from failing to foresee the mobile home, cartoonist Harvey Johnson wasn't terribly far off the mark:

"This is my first postwar plan. Every day I'm gonna drive in and say 'Fill'er up!'"

The return to normalcy was, nevertheless, going to take some getting used to.

"Please don't salute me any more, your lordship -- I'm no longer a colonel, nor you a captain!"

(Cartoonist identified only as "Medill" in the book credits)

"I beg your pardon but this is an old sailor habit that keeps coming back to me!"

(Cartoonist William Wenzel, again -- some editor having decided to print a mirror image of the cartoon!)

Postwar World: Women's Fashion

Welcome to another Stickleback Saturday episode of A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World!  We had recently been perusing the cartoons in this 1944 pamphlet which concern how the end of the war would affect the fairer sex, and there is one cartoon that recognizes the Women's Army Corps:

Cartoonist Harvey Johnson's returning WAC may not have made entirely practical clothing choices, but sometimes you really gotta cut loose. Footloose. Kick off your army boots.

This next woman, however, is looking into something exceedingly practical, as long as she doesn't live in, say, Arizona.

I think this is another cartoon by Fritz Wilkinson -- the signature is difficult to make out, but the technique of using swaths of benday wash in the background matches some of the other cartoons with neater penmanship.

Here's another Wilkinson cartoon, just because.

Postwar World: Womenfolk and Tech

It has been a month since Swoopback Saturday has leafed through A Bird's Eye View of the Postwar World, so here we go. We were discussing postwar predictions for the fairer sex, some of which were little more than flimsy excuses to draw some cheesecake.

But of more interest (to me, anyway) are when the cartoonists let their imaginations run wild predicting a world of amazing gadgets, time- and labor-saving devices, and changes to everyday life.

You will probably have to click on this picture to be able to read George Shellhases's flights of fancy, since I didn't separate them out into separate graphics:

Postwar World Salute to Service Members

While this is a departure from the topic where we last left off from A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World, it's Armed Services Day. So here's a salute to the man and women in uniform... with apologies that there are no cartoons about servicewomen in this 1945 booklet. *

"Well I'm home for good now, woman, and things are going to be different from now on!"

The cartoons are also about life after the war is over, so there are no Willie and Joe in the trenches cartoons, either.

The signature on the cartoon above is nearly cropped out, but it might be by William Wenzel (January 22, 1918 – May 12, 1987). This next cartoon is definitely Wenzel's, and it is much the same style -- but suggests that our returning Master Sergeant's wife may be more prepared for his return than he thinks:

"Sergeant Gilhooy will now tell us how to handle our men in the postwar world!"

* Well, almost none.

Postwar World: An Eye for the Girls

With my promise to change the subject in my series of cartoons from A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World comes an opportunity to print the front cover of the paperback, above. The cartoon by Barney Tobey illustrates the focus of this next series.

These cartoonists predicted that the aftermath of World War II would feature a lot of leering and ogling of shapely females, and not just from helicopters. Fritz Wilkinson, right, warned women of virtue and modesty that even a privacy screen would not protect them from their television screens.

It's hard to argue that these cartoonists were wrong in their predictions. A lot of men spent the prime of their lives cooped up with other men slogging across Europe and the Pacific; they didn't all get to be stranded on a tiny island with Leslie Caron and a dozen schoolgirls.

Even if these men did find opportunity for female companionship, they were far from home for the first time in their lives, where word of whatever behavior they engaged in was unlikely to make it back to their neighbors, schoolmarms, Sunday School teachers, parents or sweethearts.

(And of course, some found that they were quite happy in the company of other men, shipped back to San Francisco and New York after the war, and stayed there; but there is nothing of that anywhere in this little comic book.)

I take it that this male libido thing was a brand new discovery, at least to Mr. Wilkinson, whose cartoon at left doesn't seem at first blush to have anything to do with newfangled inventions. At least, I assume that not every female before 1945 looked and dressed like Ma Joad.

The Interest Department might have been a new thing at the bank. If so, it didn't last long enough for there to be one at any of the banks I've ever been to. I am old enough to remember when it was rare for checking accounts to earn interest, however; perhaps banks discovered that they could save money on salaries by merging the Interest Department and the Checking Department.

Postwar World: Think of the Children

It's Slinkback Saturday here at Bergetoons, which means it's time for one last look at predictions from A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World of an airborne society.

Here Marvin Townsend's herione takes in all the airplanes, helicopters, and mass transit cucumbers her future holds and she -- well, I don't know exactly what her premonition is.

Maybe she's foreseeing propeller beanies. If she's smart, she and her husband will invest in the impending fad, allegedly invented in 1947 by science fiction writer-cartoonist Ray F. Nelson and further popularized by the TV cartoon Beany & Cecil in the 1950s. As long as they sell out before boomer boys' attentions turn from aircraft to rockets, they should make out handsomely.

And speaking of making out, here's my very last -- I promise! -- ABEVPW cartoon about everyday air travel:

...Which will lead us into our next topic: Sex and the Postwar Girl.

Postwar Eye in the Sky

Here are two more helicopter cartoons from A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World (R. M. Barrows and Margaret Foster, eds.; Consolidated Book Publishers, Chicago, 1945). And then I'm almost done with the subject.

Vic Herman's cartoon at left -- and here's a cartoonist who provides a nice, big, very legible signature on his work so I don't have to strain my eyes reading the small print on the back page -- gives us one of those simple gags about how Sexual Harassment Is Funny. No need to click on this cartoon to embiggen, even though you can if you want.

Vic Herman also drew the cartoon below right. It's on the inside of the cover of the book, my copy of which is considerably worse for wear, which explains the water stain and the tear.

I do get this cartoon, insofar as a helicopter showing up at a garden party would naturally attract a lot of attention. But I worry that Gloria's admirers are in danger of losing their heads over her, and not in a good way.

But at least this cartoon isn't as sexist as the first, since Gloria clearly is as able to fly her helicopter as any slick-haired guy with binoculars. Why, Mr. Perv Pilot merely opens his window to leer at --say, isn't that Gloria? -- whereas Gloria flies an open-air convertible helicopter and is able to hover mere inches off the ground while engaging in ever so scintillating conversation.

Either way, besides helicopter manufacturers, everyone apparently saw a bright future in the postwar world for the pomade market. Even with all these helicopters hovering over sunbathers, crashing garden parties, dropping kids off from school, buzzing mountain climbers, spying on hillbillies, and delivering door-to-door salesmen, there is not a single hair out of place anywhere to be seen.

Postwar Traffic Cop

A propos of nothing, here's another cartoon from A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World (R. M. Barrows & Margaret Foster, eds., Consolidated Book Publishers, Chicago, 1945), continuing the theme of that well before now, we'd all be flying through the air with the greatest of ease.

Well, not this guy, particularly. Perhaps he had been caught speeding, or changing lanes without signaling.

Or perhaps it was a case of rotor rage.

The cartoonist here is identified only as "Robinson," even in the back page credits, so either he was phenomenally famous, or even his editors at the Saturday Evening Post (or Collier's or Parade or whatever) had no idea who he was.

Well, I'll Be Gobsmacked

We interrupt this blog to bring you another installment from A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World (compiled by R. M. Barrows and Margaret Foster, Consolidated Book Publishers, 1945).

As we've been observing in this series, our foretoonists 70 years ago were fascinated by the idea that flight would be a commonplace, everyday mode of travel. Imagine how this aviation revolution would be seen by remote, primitive societies beyond the reach of modern civilization (click the cartoon to embiggenize)!

It was all well and good back in 1945 to suppose that Eb and Zeke would accept the arrival of advanced beings from the skies with reasoned calm. This was decades before the Prime Directive, after all.

What cartoonist Don Ulsh couldn't foresee was that the descendants of these primitive hillbillies would develop wildly fantastic mythologies about sinister forces driving those black helicopters.

Black Helicopters (BH) are not just helicopters with a black paint-job as you may have been told. They are, in fact, autonomous agents -- lifeforms -- created by New World Order (NWO) agencies via nanobiotechnology. Their primary purpose is to spy on the activities of average citizens in order to gather tactical information and discover "subversives" who are not bowing to the will of the Liberati's UN-backed Federal Government. Furthermore, when the NWO Invasion takes place in the not-too-distant future, they will round up citizens for internment in concentration camps or carry out the elimination of the more vocally anti-Liberati.

The truth is out there. Way out there.

A Is For Avionics

While we're waiting for this week's cartoon, let's check in again with A Bird's Eye Look at the Postwar World and see who's parachuting in now.

In this cartoon (you can embiggen it before going on to read the rest of this sentence if you like) by Marvin Townsend, it's Junior coming home from school.

This is a long shot, but perhaps if baby boomers had indeed gotten to and from school in B-52s, there wouldn't have been such a fuss about busing back in the 1960s and 70s. Part of the argument against it, as I recall, hinged on what inordinate amounts of time kids ended up spending riding the bus across town and back again. Air bus flights would have drastically cut those travel times.

Of course, nowadays, the kids would have to arrive at the air bus station at least two hours before their scheduled flight in order to check their bookbags, be prescreened against no-fly lists, and line up to empty their pockets into the gray plastic tray and go through the body scanner.

By the way, check out the urban sprawl in this cartoon!

Because It Is There

As we approach the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, I've been posting some cartoons from A Bird's Eye View of the Postwar World from 1945.

Kay Kato's heroine in this cartoon is enjoying her leisurely ascent of El Capitan. And while she didn't have to coat her hands with superglue or mess with pick axes and crampons, she appears to be completely oblivious to the fact that the blades atop her helicopter have stopped spinning.

What Color Is Your Parachute?

It has been a while since I posted anything from A Bird's-Eye View of the Postwar World (Consolidated Book Publishers, Chicago, 1945).

The conceit of several of the cartoons was that air travel would be an everyday way for the average citizen to get around, even just across town. Here's an example by Will Johnson which fails to anticipate how this Acme salesman is supposed to get home.

Perhaps he has to wait at the airbus stop with all the other commuters, but he still has to lug that parachute with him around the neighborhood.

The cartoonists also assume, rather quaintly, that all those Rosies the Riveters would return to their housekeeping -- which, after all, was the Ozzie & Harriet model for the 1950's. The only working women in the entire book are one secretary and one hat saleslady.

Because Sexual Harassment Is Funny

In the second installment of cartoons from 1945's A Bird's Eye View of the Postwar World, we have a look at the workplace environment according to cartoonist Eric Ericson:

One hardly knows where to begin.

Air Travel in the Postwar World

A United Airlines flight from Newark to Denver was diverted to Chicago this week in order to eject a pair of passengers who got into a fight over the two inches of space that are the difference between sitting upright and "reclining."

From the Associated Press story:

"The source of the problem: a Knee Defender, the $26.30 device that clamps onto an airline tray table, preventing the passenger in front of you from reclining their seat. ... On Monday's Flight 1462, the woman seated in front took offence and the man behind refused to remove the device, even when asked to do so by cabin crew. That's when she threw a cup of water in his face."

One school of thought says (from the same story),

"When you pay to ride in a plane, you're paying to use the seat - and if that means the seat reclines, well bad luck for the person behind. Of course, we should all be reasonable and, if the passenger behind asks nicely, most folk will put their seats forward. Nobody hops on to a plane planning to be an a**hole. Except maybe him."

On the other hand, 

"Just when you’ve resigned yourself to the tiny bit of air space you’ve been allotted for a trip that will take hours, the person in front of you blithely flips back the seat and takes away another six to eight inches. Just try to get out of your seat and go to the restroom now.... Why do people push their seat back when they know it’s going to inconvenience the person behind them? Can’t we appeal to everyone’s better nature and say, for the good of all, that it would be better if we didn’t do that?"

Which brings me to A Bird's Eye View of the Postwar World," a 1945 collection of cartoons and short humor pieces about what people expected life to be like when World War II came to an end. (Consolidated Book Publishers, 153 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago.) I have a tattered copy of this paperback that originally belonged to one of my parents or grandparents. And by "paperback," I mean that even the cover is newsprint.

Here's an example of what people 70 years ago thought air travel was going to be like:

(Cartoon by Martin E. Garrity.)

So that's what's in front of the curtain screening first class passengers from the rest of us in steerage.